What kind of heinous invention is this? Why would you bring so much of this into my children’s lives? Do you hate parents? Do you want to punish us for something we’ve done in a previous life?

Everywhere I turn it’s there. Under my bare feet, in my bed, embedded into carpet, rattling into my hoover, chewed up and pooped out by my dog… you get the picture.

You ‘blessed’ my kids with several sets on Christmas morning and although we spent two bloody days building the things it took less than 30 seconds for them to be dismantled. This was followed by multiple breakdowns because they couldn’t put it back the way it was and their horrible mother threw out the instructions and boxes. There’s no sound more soul-destroying than hearing the contents of the Lego box being tipped out onto the floor; and if I waited until my children actually pick up the damn stuff afterwards I would be 90.

My nails and spirit are broken because of these toys from hell.

If I have to feign interest at another collection of random bricks thrown together which – I’m told – are meant to be a spaceship I’m going to lose it and scream: IT’S SHIT! BUILD SOMETHING I CAN RECOGNISE!!!

I’ve spent the morning looking for one particular teeny tiny green piece which is apparently essential to the existence to the universe. If I don’t find it before school pick up my life won’t be worth living. I’m 90% sure the dog ate it.

If you’re reading this, head my advice: squash your child’s imagination and creativity before it’s too late. Don’t get into bed after a long day and find a small square of plastic lodged into your spine (a present left by my youngest).

I urge you to save yourself and kill their brain cells with television.

I used to hate Sunday; not in the ‘I have the fear of Monday’ kinda way I just got uneasy about them.

I could never put my finger on why but over the last few months I’ve been changing them in my mindset.

Spurred on by my friend I took part in the #last90days challenge which was to treat the last 90 days of the year like I’d treat the first 90 of a New Year.

Part of that was practising gratitude.
This small addition to my daily life has brought with it an abundance of positivity. Literally sitting down and finding the little things to be grateful for in that particular day has been a fantastic way to keep me present and not stuck ruminating over an argument I had a decade ago, cracking up because the words won’t get onto the paper or giving my husband a concussion with the toilet brush because he’s left a wet towel on the bed AGAIN.

Thirty seconds of thinking about something you’re thankful for can lift my mood or readjust a negative mindset and prevent me from getting a criminal record.

Today is Day 90 on my alcohol-free journey and I am grateful for a whole bunch of things but mostly it’s for not breaking this promise to myself.

It’s the last ten days and then I will sit down and write about the whole experience but one of the best parts of it has been my love for Sunday.

They’re no longer plagued with residual hangovers or anxiety; now they’re filled with trampoline park get-togethers, good food and feeling proud.

So it’s New Year’s Day – also known as ‘What the hell am I doing with my life?’ Day – but before you commit to that restrictive diet that makes your sugar levels plummet and miserable how about you just don’t?

I mean, what’s the worst that can happen here?
Chances are you’ve spent the last month being indulgent with eating and drinking and you’re ready to juice everything in your cupboard in the hope of dropping a dress size before trying to fit into your work trousers in coming days.

Sorry, kid, it’s not happening – but so what?
Did you enjoy yourself? Did you make memories with your family and friends? I hope so.

I keep seeing posts about the New Year being the chance to write a whole new book, so why waste the first chapter being hungry and miserable just so you can give up a few weeks later?

Instead of re-evaluating your major life decisions, stripping your diet down to 500 calories a day or running a 10K just to pull a muscle four minutes into it, why don’t you spend the next few days eating some veggies, drinking some water and continue being the badass you were at 11:59pm?

I’m all for self-improvement and I’m constantly on the search for ways to do so but not at the cost of my happiness.

Being an adult is shite. One of the worst things is trying to make friends at my age. I’m rubbish at it. Seriously, as an introverted extrovert (it’s a thing, I promise) I genuinely break into a cold sweat at the thought of having to speak to new people or generally go anywhere that I’ve never been before. Music makes up a huge part of my life. I sing around the house to the point where my children ask me to ‘just stop that’ on regular points throughout the day. It’s easy to gauge my mood depending on what I’m listening to. If it’s Queen, you’re safe; if it’s Kanye West just run and hide.

Fun fact: WHEN I win the lottery my first splurge will be to put on my own production of Jesus Christ Superstar and cast myself as Judas just so I can sing ‘Heaven on their mind’ and people won’t be able to stop me. He gets the best songs and there’s no way I’d ever be able to reach *that* note in ‘Gethsemane’ – I don’t have the gravitas for Pilate. Yes, I’ve thought about this A LOT.

This paints me as someone who can actually sing – I can’t. I can hold a note, but anyone that’s heard me attempt karaoke can attest to the fact that I should probably just sit the hell down. I make up my own words and a key is really something to dabble in more than a necessity to the process. I’m currently in my office wailing along to ‘Eleanor Rigby’ as I type. You can’t stop me, family, my chair is against the door and my headphones are in so I can’t hear you shout. Suckas!

I’m getting off point: making friends.

I’ve always held the belief that I pretty much peaked at primary school and one of my favourite things to do there was sing in the choir. I got to sing and I also got to hide behind much better singers in the process (hooray!)

In my attempt to actually get out of the house and meet people – the worst – my mother suggested I join a local choir. I hadn’t sang publicly since primary school but I knew a few people that had already joined which made the whole process a lot easier.

It was easily the best decision I’ve made this year. For two hours a week I get to be no one else but me. It’s so much fun. It’s such a huge release to just sit and sing and laugh with a group of women who all just sing for the fun of it. It also helps that Kathy, who runs The Choir Studio, is basically the nicest human you’ll ever meet. It’s like Snow White runs a choir – seriously. She’s the only person who gets away with calling me ‘Lizzy’ simply because I don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. It would be like hitting a puppy to disappoint this woman.

I’ve met so many lovely people through this and it’s such a huge lift to my mood each and every week. I wish I was one of those people who feel the fear and do it anyway, (there’s basically a list of things I’ve always wanted to do, and for one reason or another, I don’t) I doubt I ever will be BUT I’m very proud and relieved that I took the leap and went that first week.

The whole point of this post is to emphasise the fact that there’s no age limit on trying something new, especially if it’s something you previously loved.

You want to sing? Sing.

You want to learn how to kick someone’s ass and defend yourself? Right on.

You want to burlesque like a boss? Fucking do it.

You want to ride a unicycle without a seat? Phone a healthcare professional and take a long hard look at yourself.

Can you imagine what you could achieve if you weren’t afraid? I think Monday would be a pretty spectacular thing if that was the case.

I’m not there yet but I’m working on it and that’s wholeheartedly down to a bunch of women who like singing for the sake of it and I’m forever grateful.

In a couple of weeks my youngest child starts nursery. This looming change hasn’t been bothering me much up until now. He’s more than ready for it and massively excited about being able to head off to school just like his big brother.

With this move into the next stage of his life, it also brings change for me too. I’ve been a stay-at-home mum for over two years and although I do love to complain about how much my kids wind me up I’m genuinely going to be a bit lost when he goes. Of course this completely kills all excuses not to be finishing the second book or working on my Masters, but I’m sure I will be able to think up other pitiful reasons to avoid my office – I am, after all, an expert procrastinator.

Ozzy gets a bit of a bad reputation on the blog, mostly because he’s just not as sensitive as Oliver was at his age, but this doesn’t make him the ‘bad’ one. He’s his own person.

He’s a mirror image of my husband (which can be irritating, especially when he and I are fighting) and although he’s not as gentle as Oliver, he’s much more affectionate. He’s got a laugh that resonates from a place of pure mischief, he’s strong-willed, he’s energetic, he’s chaos personified and he’s the reason I laugh throughout the day. He gets away with so much more than Oliver ever did because he’s the baby and because of his countless admissions to hospital due to f**king croup, every winter.

Within minutes of meeting him, his teacher – who taught Oliver before him – remarked: “Well, we’re dealing with a whole different character.” A summary I couldn’t have put better myself.

I love that they’re so different from each other; it’s what keeps things interesting around here.

There’s something else about Oscar that always makes him a little bit special to me. He has a sense of when I may be in need of a hug or just for someone to sit beside, something that no one else in the house picks up on (even my stalker dog). When he does find me I’m usually in the hallway, perched on the second last step of my stairs.

This is my spot.

It’s where I take a breather from the house and from life. I make telephone calls here, I have arguments here, I’ve cried here, laughed here and had kisses that make the world melt away. I’ve had the worst news of my life here and the best. I’ve fallen apart and put myself back together all whilst sitting on this step so it’s not hard to find me when I’ve slipped away from the chaos of playtime.

Ozzy, without fail, will simply sit beside me on this spot and give me a hug. But there’s sometimes, when he thinks I might need it, he’ll give my arm an extra squeeze and say: “There, that will fix your heart.” And then he runs off back to being a destructive three-year-old. For those few seconds he can read me better than someone ten times his age and I love him for it.

Now, if that’s not a pretty special kid then I don’t know what is.

He’s going to be fine and I’m going to be fine but I will miss this chapter of my life. Those few hours when it was just the two of us drove me crazy at times but I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.

It’s been almost a month since the official launch date of Amy Cole has lost her mind. In this time I’ve had newspaper coverage, I’ve recorded a television interview on Novel Ideas and I’m set to appear on Radio Ulster at the end of the month. The launch night went better than I could have hoped, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive and sales since then have been ticking along nicely.

I should be over the moon, right? Let’s face it, this is me we’re talking about – when am I ever happy?

Instead of just feeling warm in the glow of this accomplishment (one that I never thought I’d actually go through with) I can feel myself getting overwhelmed by fear of being found out as a total fraud.

Bye-bye depression, hello Imposter Syndrome! Never a dull moment in this brain.

If you Google this term it will come back with: Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which people doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent, often internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

This was never more evident than when the producer at Novel Ideas asked me to say my name and my title. I could not think of the words, I had to ask her what she meant. The word she was looking for was ‘author’ but even as I sat there with an actual hardcopy of the book in my lap I ended up saying: “Eh author, I guess?”

What the hell is that about?

This isn’t a new thing. In everyday things I was always minimising who I was, what I did or tried to play things down. In jobs and my personal life I had this little niggling voice in my brain saying: “They’re going to find out you’re not who they think you are.”

There was a constant underlying fight or flight scenario in my head in case I was actually ‘found out’.

When Health Visitors called for the routine check-ups there was a ridiculous notion in my head that they would ask a question I couldn’t answer and this whole motherhood charade would come crashing down around me and my kids would be taken away. Now, if they called I would handily have their bags packed (I kid, calm down).

However, this pattern of thinking hit a road block after I went to get some photos taken for PR purposes. I had followed Jess Lowe’s work on weddings for years and when I saw she was branching out into business headshots I was delighted. I swooned over these lovely relaxed looking individuals with incredible, unique looking shots and it was a no-brainer to go with her.

This was late last year and I was pretty much a mess at this time so I wasn’t expecting a miracle. I was hideously anxious and never felt more ridiculous than when I was going to meet her and actually go through with this. I felt like I was wasting this woman’s time and she was going to figure out exactly that within about three minutes of meeting me.

Instead I spent over an hour with a genuinely nice person, who was kind to me. She put me at ease and gave me some advice that I repeated from that day right up until the launch. I mean, she put on Arcade Fire in the background while we worked so of course she’s awesome.

A simple sentence that she, no doubt, didn’t think of after she said it but it really changed things for me. And that magical advice was, I hear you ask?

“So what? Fake it till you make it.”

Nothing earth shattering, nothing I haven’t heard before but for some reason that sentence, on that day made me think: I can make a plan, figure out the rest as I go along and get this book done.

So I did.

I plodded along the next day, the day after that and so on until 25th May where I stood in front of a room of people and thanked them for being at the launch of this book.

I faked it until I made it come true.

There may be a part of me that will panic at the thought of doing more promotion on Amy Cole but it certainly won’t stop me. I spent years letting fear stop me from doing so many things and I swore that would stop, it’s the only New Year’s resolution I hope to keep.

The point is: I hope that there’s someone reading this who can relate to this imposter syndrome but now you know that doesn’t have to stop you from doing each and every thing you want to with your life.

Take if from Jess: fake it till you make it and see what amazing things you’re capable of.

In December 2013 I had a miscarriage. It wasn’t my only miscarriage, but it’s the one that really screwed me up. I was six weeks pregnant and I had her whole life planned out.
One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, yet, I still don’t feel entitled to grieve for my child properly because it ended so early. It had been ingrained in me that because it was so early on it should be treated as ‘just one of those things’. It’s because of this mind-set that I tried to bounce back to normality and get on with things. That plan didn’t work out so well and I ended up taking a nosedive into depression.
I know I’m not alone in this.
Women are meant to be stoic and get on with their lives and pretend that it’s silly to grieve for something that was barely there. There’s a time limit that you can be upset for (usually until you stop bleeding) and then anything more than that you’re just being dramatic.
Don’t get me wrong, my family never made me feel like that – I did. I pushed myself to forget that it even happened and concentrate on my son that was here, or even just try again. Simple, right?
The problem was I had already fallen in love with my baby that was the size of an orange, decided her name and was already mentally redecorating the nursery for her. I couldn’t just switch it off and I resented the fact that I ‘had’ to.
It didn’t go away when I fell pregnant with Oscar and it hasn’t gone away nearly five years later.
I’m still angry.
I’m angry that I have nothing to remember this little life by. I don’t have a grave to visit, a scan photo to look at or even the positive pregnancy test as proof she existed, even for those six short weeks.
All I have is the dull ache in my heart that comes back when I remember sitting in the A&E department, bleeding, waiting to see a doctor.
If I don’t think about her, then it really would be like she never existed and I refuse to do that. It’s bad enough that I felt ashamed to grieve for something that was never meant to be, I won’t let the memory of those few weeks be forgotten.
I don’t want to be embarrassed about still thinking about her, I want to acknowledge that this shitty, shitty thing happened and remember that for those six weeks she existed. I won’t let myself forget the little life I had forged for her and I’ll listen to P!nk! ‘Beam me up’ and remember that grief is brutal but there’s no time limit or right way to do it.
I wish there had been words of comfort from a doctor, when it happened, or any type of counselling that could have helped me feel justified in my upset, but there was neither. I guess the point of this post is: miscarriage is horrible at any stage; if you’ve gone through it I’m sorry for your loss. You are not alone and it’s ok to remember your baby. Even if you’re lucky enough to go on and have a healthy pregnancy and give birth, it still doesn’t make your loss disappear or any less relevant. It happened, feel it.
Her name was Lily, she was my daughter and she always will be.

This evening, my eldest son came into the kitchen looking forlorn. I asked him what was wrong and he said:

“Oscar threw a poo at me.”

And with that, I decided it was time to talk about potty training.

It should come as no surprise, to those who read this blog regularly, that this next parenting milestone has turned into a complete farce.

Some people reading this may feel that I should reconsider sharing the poo-flinging incident on the blog for fear it will come back to haunt him when he’s older. However, I feel that this could be a teachable moment. For example: should he irritate me in his teenage years I will be able to teach him that is not advisable by printing out this post and handing it out to his classmates.

I have spent months trying to convince him to start potty training, explaining that he needs to learn for when he starts nursery.

He didn’t care.

I’ve told him that he gets to wear super-cool pants.

He didn’t care.

I’ve told him he’ll get a treat, every time he uses the potty.

He thought about this for a little while and ultimately decided: he didn’t care.

The only person he will remotely be convinced by is his older brother. He wants to be just like him – to the point where he repeats his sentences straight after Oliver says them and pines after him at the window when he leaves for school.

Oliver has had some success with the treat angle (mostly because every time Oscar gets a treat I relent and give him one too). I have a feeling, by the end of this, I will have a kid out of nappies but two children bordering on the verge of Type-2 diabetes.

Back to this evening…

I went to check on the poopetrator and found him innocently sat on the potty, whilst the offending turd was sat on the living room floor. I asked him what happened and all I could gather from the guilty party was that: ‘Offer did it’.

‘Offer’ (Oliver) denies this and I’m inclined to believe the good one. Yes, I said it.

He didn’t even try to keep the pretence up for long, for fear of losing favour with his hero. Instead he cut his losses gave me a ‘sowee’ and went back to basically not giving a f**k about being in my good graces.

This child will be the death of me.

I was going to attempt to put together a handy guide on how to deal with potty training but, as you’ve probably gathered by now, I haven’t a damn clue.

If you want advice, ask Oliver – he seems to have life figured out at four-years-old.

I’ve deliberated about writing this. I’ve started and stopped numerous times. When it comes to writing about my mental health and how I have previously dealt with my depression, it can leave me very antsy. It being the internet and all, I often worried that exposing myself to scrutiny will set in motion a spiral to a very negative place.

Thankfully, I have yet to receive anything other than kind comments and private messages with previous posts. With that in mind, I decided it was important to continue the conversation regarding mental health, even if it means risking the wrath of the dreaded internet troll.

After publishing my very smug post called: ‘Sertraline and Shame’, I was on a high about my new-found acceptance of the part antidepressants play in my day-to-day life. I felt that I could wear it like a badge of honour and have a ‘fuck you’ attitude towards anyone that thought less of me for needing them. That smugness lasted a week, tops. That’s when things started taking a turn for the worse.

I’m not going into details like I have done previously but basically things were bad. As in: threats-of-admission-to-hospital-for-my-safety bad; however, a compromise was made and Home Treatment was set up along with 24 hour supervision from my extended family.

Yet again I was at rock bottom, for the second time in four years. I went through the motions, I did as I was told (for fear of the hospital admission threat becoming a reality) and I waited for the fog to lift – but it didn’t. A week went by, then two and I was no nearer to getting back up off the floor. I’m not afraid to admit: I was scared. I was referred to the local resources centre who I had previously worked with on CBT but I found out they no longer offered it on a one-to-one basis. My options were limited and the thought of having to share what I was going through in a group session put the fear of God in me.

I spent a lot of time sitting in my mother’s giant chair in front of the fire pretending to sleep so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about everyone sitting round making sure I was safe – I assume they were busy hiding the scissors when I actually was asleep (I joke). I was very much a passenger in this stage of the recovery. I had no enthusiasm or desire to get better, yes I felt guilty that everyone was taking time out of their lives to babysit a 32-year-old but even that didn’t shake me into grabbing the wheel and taking control of my own life again. The medication was upped, I slept days away, ignored my phone and the outside world altogether and waited to be told what I had to do next.

It didn’t take long for the real adults to come up with a solution: find private CBT sessions and hope that it worked as well as the last time. I was asked if I wanted to go ahead with this plan, I think I just about lifted my head from the chair and grunted then went back to faking sleep.

The appointment was made and I was taken to meet the newest person I had to spill my guts out to. It’s exhausting to do these initial meetings, at this stage I can just about rattle off my backstory to complete strangers and wait for them to write parts down while I wonder if they are going to have me sectioned (they can’t FYI). On this particular day I had decided that hostility was the way to go. I was so bored of the same questions and that concerned look on people’s faces that I was ready to scream and who better to take this out on than the woman who was trying to help me? Obviously.

She asked why I was there and despite my kneejerk reaction to say something incredibly sarcastic, I behaved and told her what had been going on. I told her about the previous success I had with CBT and I was basically looking for a refresher course, but she wasn’t sold on this plan of action.

Instead she wanted me to talk through my life from childhood up until now. This was by far the last thing I wanted to do but again, I did as I was told. When I finished she highlighted a total of five traumas that had happened in the past and she believed that CBT was only going to work as a ‘sticking plaster’ solution. She recommended Havening, to decode the trauma and take away the pain from it.

Now, at this point I need to stress I am a sceptic of holistic therapies. I believe there’s good in some practices such as: mindfulness, yoga, meditation and even Reiki but I don’t think they cure anything. I feel it’s more of a ‘help your mood’ solution more than anything else.

If you look up havening on the internet you get a lot of Daily Mail articles and videos featuring Paul McKenna who is a big advocate of this but it’s all very vague and it doesn’t really explain what happens. The best way I have been able to explain it is: decoding a specific traumatic incident. This is done by using simple methods to distract your brain – through things like: touch, visualisation, humming (or singing) and word association – in turn, it eases the pain associated with the memory.

I am forever grateful that I did not look up anything about Havening before this appointment because I would never have shown up. I was suicidal and this woman wanted me to hum? No thanks, whack-job.

I identified one trauma that was a 10/10 for pain and she told me she was going to take it away. I spent the next half hour with her doing as I was told and when she was finished she asked me how I felt – I said it was a 6/10 (I was trying to be nice, she had really spent a lot of time already with me but I knew this was never going to work). I straightened up and got ready to leave but she told me that we were going to work some more on it as that number was too high.

The whole appointment lasted 90 minutes and by the end of it the pain was gone. Nothing remained of it. When she told me to open my eyes I felt physically lighter, it felt as though all the cells in my body were vibrating violently in a way that made me feel utterly invincible. We had visualised an impenetrable bubble that was around me and nothing negative or harmful could get through. This was done at the start of December and now, in February, the vibrations may have stopped but the bubble remains.

Before I left, I asked if I would need to come back and deal with the other traumas we had highlighted but she assured me confidently that I wouldn’t need to. I believed her. I left her office feeling like a completely different person. In 90 minutes she had taken away pain I had carried with me daily for over ten years. My family were speechless.

This next part I don’t say lightly: havening has cured my depression.

I have waited until now to talk about it because I didn’t want to jump the gun and, honestly, I’ve been waiting for the effects to wear off so I can be proved right about holistic healing – but they haven’t. I suspect my family have also been waiting for the other shoe to drop but even they can’t deny the changed person that is in front of them.

I’ve worried that saying something like is irresponsible but because I have struggled with depression since I was 16 and have tried every avenue available to me in order to try and deal with it, I stand by that verdict. All I can say with complete certainty is: I did this, and now I’m free from depression for the first time in 16 years.

I’m currently in the process of weaning my body off Sertraline and I’m not remotely worried about it. The hideous disease that has plagued my life has finally gone. Sometimes I test it by going back to the trauma and see if the pain is reforming, but it’s not; not even a little. It’s a memory but it holds no power over me anymore.

I hope by my sharing this experience that even one person can see there is hope against the darkness within – even if the answer for them isn’t havening – because if I can permanently close the book on depression with certainty and without fear of it returning, than anyone can.

Funny story – well, it’s funny now and my sister doesn’t come across too well but fuck it (sorry, Rachael).

On St Patrick’s Day, this year I was in the local shopping centre to watch my niece do some Irish dancing. It was packed, as it always is on that day and I was boiling. It was a long wait and after the first watch of the performance I told my sister I wasn’t feeling well and had to leave. She was not pleased. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I had to wait until the next performance to take a video of my niece dancing – because apparently Rachael had lost the use of her hands. I mean, she hadn’t but I blame her for my humiliation so let’s pretend she’s as mean as I’m letting on here.

After that I can remember thinking: “Oh, God I’m going to vomit in the middle of the shopping centre and this is going to be the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Oh, how wrong I was.

As I struggled to find my sister’s handbag to vomit in, as retribution for making me stay in this hell hole, I started to get dizzy and that’s the last thing I remember. I woke up to the sound of a very loud Belfast accent asking me about drugs.

I was completely and utterly confused as to where I was and why the hell there was a man asking me for drugs. He wasn’t of course, it was a paramedic asking was I on any (I wasn’t, mum). I hadn’t vomited; I had fainted in the middle of the damn shopping centre and now was being wheeled out of the place on one of the busiest days of the year in Newry. This was a whole new level of embarrassment and I wholeheartedly blame my sister for this and will do until my dying day.

Turns out, I’m anaemic. No big deal, I have to take an iron tablet every day or I’ll end up on my ass again. It’s necessary and not something I’m remotely ashamed about, although I could stand to eat more spinach now and again. So, why is it that, up until about a week ago, I was still very ashamed to admit that I was taking daily antidepressants?

I mean it’s very simple: the chemicals in my brain are a bit skewed and this sorts it out. I’ve been very forthcoming with my battle against depression. When it comes to the worst times I’ve been through because of this disease, you can find it rather quickly on this website but as for the day-to-day reality of living with it I shy away from admitting things.

I was getting into bed and taking the iron tablet and the Sertraline (my not-so-secret-shame drug of choice) and something just clicked. What’s the big deal here? I have been on these tablets for 15 months; I quite literally need them to keep things on the level and I’ve worked damn hard to get to a place where I can accept these ‘failings’ in my brain.

Don’t get me wrong, they don’t solve everything – not by a long shot – and that’s where CBT comes in. I still have depressive episodes but the difference is I know there’s an end to it and I can bounce back a lot quicker than I would be able to do if I was going without them. I want to have complete transparency with my children when it comes to all things mental health related, especially because I am terrified of the hereditary nature of the disease. I can’t do much about that, but I can be a positive role model on how they can deal with it.

The conversation about anxiety and depression is much more open one these days but I was still ashamed to admit that I needed help of the pharmaceutical variety. I’m not anymore. I’ve just accepted that I need a little help, be it medication or practising the skills I learned through CBT.

I’ve no intention of going off them anytime soon in order to prove to myself that I can do without the cushioning they provide, why would I?

My point is: if you’re reading this and are worried about having to take the step and get help for dealing with this disease, don’t be. Fuck it, nobody is getting any medals for doing without.

I’m not ashamed of being on prescribed antidepressants in a fight against a disease that is literally trying to kill me, should I let it get on top of me again.